Community Engagement Strategy
What is the Hornsby Shire Council Community Engagement Strategy?
This Community Engagement Strategy is your guide to how you can help to plan our future by providing feedback on items placed on exhibition for formal public consultation.
The Community Engagement Strategy supports the Policy and provides a guide for staff and consultants in the deliverance of best-practice community and stakeholder engagement with high-quality outcomes.
You can participate in a diverse range of projects. You can provide feedback on a new neighbourhood playground or a development matter. You can also participate in developing new council policies and strategies.
Your participation informs and guides the decision-making functions of Council.
History of development of the Community Engagement Strategy
2021 – The initial draft Plan was exhibited from 16 April to 28 May 2021. Based on feedback from the community, a number of amendments were made to the document.
The final Plan was adopted by Council at its 14 July 2021 General Meeting with an amendment to the resolution (recommendation 5) to refer the documents to the new Council for consideration of further inclusions.
2023 – The Local Government’s Integrated Planning and Reporting (IP&R) Guidelines, stipulate that the Community Engagement Plan must be reviewed by 31 December in the year of a local government election. This timeframe was extended by 12 months due to the delay of the election from September 2021 to December 2021.
As a result, the Plan was reviewed with the following proposed housekeeping amendments:
- minimum mandatory exhibition periods added for the IP&R suite of reports
- key stakeholder groups within the Hornsby Shire community included as a table
- other minor text edits.
In addition, minimum and recommended exhibition periods for Council documents including major projects, strategies and plans were added to address the amendment to the Council resolution on 14 July 2021.
The revised plan with the proposed housekeeping amendments was exhibited from 16 February to 16 March 2023. No submissions were received, and the Housekeeping Amendments were adopted at the 10 May 2023 Council Meeting.
2024 – An internal review of the Community Engagement Plan was again undertaken in 2024 as part of the broader review of the Community Strategic Plan required with a newly elected council. Several amendments were proposed including an update to the title of the document (now calling it a Strategy), reference to Council’s online engagement platform ‘YourSayHornsby’, updates to processes associated with applying for and providing feedback on development applications and the engagement period for feedback on proposals associated with parks and sporting facilities, and amendments to language to improve readability. This revised Strategy was exhibited from 24 October to 20 November 2024 and one submission was received. The revised Strategy with the proposed amendments and a further inclusion to address the submission received was adopted at the 11 December 2024 Council Meeting.
Community Engagement Policy
Council’s Community Engagement Policy outlines Council’s commitment to building open, transparent and active relationships with the community.
The draft Policy was exhibited from 16 April to 28 May 2021. Based on feedback from the community an amendment was made to the document.
The final Policy was adopted by Council at its 14 July 2021 General Meeting.
Community Consultations
- Community Engagement Strategy (PDF 15MB)
- Community Engagement Policy (PDF 173KB)